SUMMARY
13 Startup Funding Took Place In The Indian Startup Ecosystem This Week
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We bring to you the latest edition Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding of the week. This week 12 Indian startups raised about $2.072 Bn in funding in the Indian startup ecosystem and two startup acquisitions took place. (The startup funding calculations are based on the startups that disclosed their funding amounts)
Making it the biggest announcement for the month, Bengaluru-headquartered cab aggregator Ola has reportedly raised $2 Bn in a fresh funding round led by the investment arm of Chinese Internet giant, Tencent. Existing investor, Softbank Group Corp, also participated in the round. Tencent poured nearly $400 Mn into the ride-hailing startup, taking the latter’s valuation to $3.8 Bn. Other backers in Ola’s latest financing round include a VC fund jointly run by the University of California’s investment arm, Ratan Tata and a number of US-based institutional investors.
Flipkart fueled in its digital payment arm PhonePe, with a $38.7 Mn investment and invested another $98 Mn in its logistics arm Ekart, through the group firm Klick2Shop. Also, Amazon India revealed its plans to increase its investment in Amazon Pay by up to five times.
Indian Startup Funding Of The Week
HomeCapital: Delhi-based fintech startup which helps home buyers with down payment, HomeCapital raised an undisclosed amount in a Seed funding round from Venture Catalysts. The funding was led by VCats angels Anuj Golecha, Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Gaurav Gandhi and others. The startup plans to use the funds raised to develop its brand, scale up its current infrastructure and enhance its product.
Indian Startup Acquisitions Of The Week
- European payments player Worldline, which is the $5.10 Bn payments arm of French IT services giant Atos, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% stake in Chennai based Indian payment platform MRL PosNet for $104.5 Mn(€ 89 Mn). The transaction is expected to close before the end of October 2017.
- itelligence India Software Solutions Private Limited acquired vCentric Technologies Private Limited based in Hyderabad. This acquisition will help itelligence to expand its offerings throughout India to serve local and international customers even more effectively and efficiently for the upcoming tasks of digitalisation.
Other Developments Of The Week
- The Karnataka government revealed its plans to invest $6.1 Mn (INR 40 Cr) for the construction of a state-of-the-art tech hub. In an official statement issued by the state government, industry body NASSCOM was named the centre’s programme and implementation partner.
- Enterprise software company Oracle has announced the first batch of startups for its Startup Cloud Accelerator programme in Delhi. The company has selected five startups for the first cohort. The company had invited applications in May 2017. At that time it had introduced new centres in Delhi/NCR, Mumbai apart from the existing centre in Bengaluru.
- Silicon Valley accelerator-investor Y Combinator has announced its Office Hours-schedule in three Indian cities for its upcoming India visit. Three partners Gustaf Alströmer, Adora Cheung, and Anu Hariharan, visiting this October, will host talks and office hours in Bangalore, Mumba, and Delhi.
- Bengaluru-based Revvx, a hardware, and IoT accelerator have entered into a strategic partnership with Silicon Valley Innovation Center (SVIC). Revvx and SVIC will also be leading a delegation to the mega event CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Consumer Electronics Show aka CES 2018 is an annual flagship event focusing on the convergence of devices, data and cloud.
- Mobile10X and Napino Auto & Electronics Limited joined hands to launch an incubation programme around Internet of Things (IoT). The aim of the programme would be to encourage young developers and aspiring entrepreneurs to create innovative and disruptive solutions around the IoT, which would eventually go on to make “Smart India’, in line with the government’s vision of ‘Digital India and ‘Smart India’.
Stay tuned for the next edition of the Funding Galore: Indian Startup Funding Of The Week!
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